Death Wish
by AlternativePunk
Summary: My mother’s face went white. “Fine, Kikyo. Go ahead and commit suicide! ”Kikyo put her headphones on again and turned the music up so loud that I could hear it. “It’s not suicide,” she said, “if you’re already dying.”'


**A'N this is a ****one-shot**** based on My Sisters Keeper. Last few chapters. Direct Quotes. **

**Characters**

**Kagome Takahashi ****(I**** know her name is Higurashi, but I have to use Takahashi): 13 years old. Sister of Kikyo, the ****allogeneic**** donor for her sister. **

**Kikyo Takahashi: 16 years old. Diagnosed with a rare case of Leukemia. **

**Inuyasha Takahashi: 18 years old. Trouble maker—drugs, ****alcohol****. Everything.**

**Izayoi Takahashi: Mother of 3 (****Kagome****, Kikyo, and Inuyasha) married to InuTaisho.**

**InuTaisho Takahashi: Father of 3. See above. Married to Izayoi.**

**Miroku Houshi: Attorney of Kagome. Has a romantic pas****t**** with Sango.**

**Sango Tajiya: Guardian ad Litem of Kagome when she files the lawsuit. Has a romantic past with Miroku. **

**Summary: ****This ****one-shot**** examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child's life, even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are, if that quest makes you like yourself less? Should you follow your own heart, or let others lead you? Kagome is not sick, but she might as well be. By the time she was 13, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kikyo, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. She was made for a purpose, for a bone marrow match for Kikyo—a life and role she has never challenged…Until now. Like most teenagers, Kagome is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister—and so Kagome makes a decision for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal, consequences for the sister she love****s. Based on the book My Sister's Keeper. Direct Quotes. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, nor do I own My Sister's Keeper. This is basically, Jodi Picoult's story. **

**The Death Game**

* * *

--Kagome Pov 

Let me tell you about the first time I had to give an oral report in class: it was third grade, and I was in charge of talking about the kangaroo. They're pretty interesting, you know. I mean, not only are they found on Australia alone, like some kind of mutant evolutionary strain—they have the eyes of the deer and the useless paws of a T. Rex. But the most fascinating thing about them is the pouch, of course. This baby, when it gets born is like the size of a germ and manages to crawl under the flap and tuck itself inside, all while its clueless mother is bouncing around the Outback. And that pouch isn't like they make it out on Saturday morning cartoons—it's pink and wrinkles like inside your lip, and full of important motherish plumbing. I'll bet you didn't know kangaroos don't just carry one joey at a time. Every now and then there will be a miniature sibling, tiny and jellied and stuck in the bottom while her older sister scrapes around with enormous feet and makes herself comfortable.

As you can see, I clearly knew my stuff. But when it was nearly my turn, just as Sesshoumaru was holing up a papier-mâché model of a lemur, I knew that I was going to be sick. I went up to Mrs. Yamato, and told her if I stayed to do this assignment, no one was going to be happy.

"Kagome," she said, "if you tell yourself you feel fine, you will."

So Sesshoumaru finished, I got up. I took a deep breath. "Kangaroos," I said, "are marsupials that live only in Australia."

Then I projectile vomited over four kids who had the bad luck to be sitting in the front row.

For the whole rest of the year, I was called KangaRalph. Every now and then some kid would go on a plane on vacation, and I'd go to my cubby to find a barf bag pinned to the front of my fleece pullover, a makeshift marsupial pouch. I was the school's greatest embarrassment until Kouga Ookami went to capture the flag in gym and accidentally pulled down Ayame Hiromi's skirt.

I'm telling you this to explain my general aversion to public speaking.

But now, on the witness stand, there's even more to be worried about. It's not that I'm nervous, like Miroku thinks. I am not afraid of clamming up, either. I'm afraid of saying too much.

I look at the courtroom and see my mother, sitting at her lawyer table and at my father whose smiles at me just the tiniest bit. And suddenly I can't believe I ever thought I might be able to go through with this. I get to the edge of my seat, ready to apologize for wasting everyone's time and bolt—only to realize that Miroku looks positively awful. He's sweating, and his pupils are so big they look like quarters set deep in his face. "Kagome," Miroku says, "do you want a glass of water?"

I look at him and think, Do _you_?

What I want is to go home. I want to run away to a place where no one knows my name and pretend to be a millionaire's adopted daughter, the heir to a toothpaste manufacturing kingdom, a Japanese pop star.

Miroku turns to me, "Kagome, why did you want to file this petition?"

A lie, as you probably know, has a taste all its own. Blocky and bitter and never quite right, like when you pop a piece of fancy chocolate into your mouth expecting toffee filling and you get lemon zest instead. "She asked," I say, the first two words will become an avalanche.

"Who asked what?"

"My mom," I say, staring at Miroku's shoes. "For a kidney." I look down at my skirt, pick at a thread. Just maybe I will unravel the whole thing.

_Flashback_

_About two months ago, Kikyo was diagnosed with kidney failure. (A/N: Kikyo already has leukemia so this makes it even worse) She got tired easily, and lost weight, and __retained__ water, and threw up a lot. The blame was pinned to a bunch of different things: genetic abnormalities, granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating actor—growth hormone shots Kikyo had once taken to boost marrow production, stress from other treatments. She was put on dialysis to get rid of the toxins __zipping__ around her stream. And then, the dialysis stopped working._

_One night, my mother came into our room when Kikyo and I were hanging out. She had my father with her, which meant we were in for a more heavy discussion than who-left-the-sink-running-by-accident. "I've been doing some reading on the internet," my mother said. "Transplants of typical organs aren't nearly as difficult to recover from as bone marrow transplants."_

_Kikyo looked at me and popped in a new CD. We both knew __where__ this was headed. "__You__ can't exactly pick up a kidney at the supermarket."_

_"I know. It turns out you only need to match a couple of HLA proteins to be __a kidney__ donor—not all six. I called Dr. Kimura to ask if I might be a match for you, and he said in normal cases, I probably would."_

_Kikyo hears the right word. "__Normal__ cases"_

_"Which you're not. Dr. Chance thinks you'd reject an organ from the general donor pool, just because your body has already been through so much." My mother looked down at the carpet. "He won't recommend the procedure unless the kidney comes from Kagome."_

_My father shook his head. "__That's__ invasive surgery," he said quietly. "__For__ both of them." _

_(A'N: Kagome has been an allogeneic donor for her sister –Kikyo- since she was a baby.)_

_I started thinking about this. Would I have to be in the __hospital?__ Would __it__ hurt? Could people live with just one kidney?_

_What if I wound up with kidney failure when I __was,__ like, seventy? Where would I get my space?_

_Before I could as any of this, Kikyo __spoke__"I'm not doing it again, all right? __I'm sick of it. The hospitals and the chemo and __the__radiation__ and the whole __freaking__ thing. Just leave me alone would you?"_

_My mother's face went white. "__Fine__, Kikyo. Go __ahead__ and commit suicide!"_

_Kikyo put her headphones on __again__ and __ turned the music up so loud that I could hear it. "__It's__ not suicide," she said, "if you're already dying." _

_End Flashback_

"Did you ever tell anyone that you didn't want to be a donor?" Miroku asks me.

I know why he's asking; he wants everyone to know I'm capable of making choices that are hard. And I even have my lie, quivering like the snake it is, caught between my teeth. But what I mean to say isn't quite what slips out. "I was kind of convinced by someone."

This is of course, news to my parents, whose eyes hammer onto me. It's news to Sango, who actually makes a small sound. And it's news to Miroku, who runs a hand down his face in defeat. This is exactly why it's better to say silent; there is less of a chance of screwing your life and everyone else's

"Kagome," Miroku says, "who convinced you?"

I am small in this seat, in this state, on this lonely planet. I fold my hands to

ether, holding between them the only motion I've managed to keep from slipping away: regret. "Kikyo."

--after a break—

One of the court attendants reads back the transcript, and Miroku nods, but he acts like he's hearing my words, regurgitated, for the very first time. "All right, Kagome, you were saying Kikyo asked you to file this lawsuit for medical emancipation?"

Again, I squirm. "Not quite."

"Can you explain?"

"She didn't ask me to file the lawsuit."

"Then what did she ask you"

I steal a glance at my mother. She knows; she has to know. Don't make me say it out loud.

"Kagome," Miroku presses, "what did she ask you?"

I shake my head, tight-lipped, and Judge Kagewaki leans over. "Kagome, you're going to have to give us an answer to this question."

"Fine." The truth bursts out of me; a raging river, now that the dam's washed away. "She asked me to kill her."

_Flashback_

_The first thing that was wrong was that Kikyo had locked the door to our bedroom. "Kikyo!" I yelled, banging, because I was sweaty and gross from hockey practice and I wanted t take a shower and change. "Kikyo, this isn't fair."_

_I guess I made enough noise, because she opened up._

_"What's your problem?" I asked, and then I went into the bathroom, turned on the __shower__ and smelled it—sweet and almost angry, the same boozy scent I associated with Inuyasha's apartment. I started opening up cabinets and rummaging __through__ towels and trying to find the proof, __and__ sure enough there was a half-empty bottle of whiskey hidden behind the boxes of tampons._

_"Looky here…" __I said, brandishing it and walking back to the bedroom thinking I had a great little wedge of blackmail to use to my advantage for a while, and then I saw __Kikyo__ holding the pills. _

_"What are you doing?"_

_"Leave me alone, Kagome."_

_"Are you crazy?"_

_"__No__," Kikyo said. "I'm sick of waiting for something that's going to happen anyway. I think I've messed up __everyone's__ life long enough, don't you?"_

_"__But __everyone's__ worked so hard just to keep you alive. __You can't kill yourself."_

_All of a sudden __Kikyo__ starts to cry. "I know. I can't." _

_It took me a few moments to realize this meant she'd already tried before._

_Flashback end_

My mother gets up slowly. "It's not true." She says, her voice stretched thin as glass. "Kagome, I don't know why you'd say that."

My eyes fill up. "Why would I make that up?"

She walks closer. "Maybe you misunderstood. Maybe she was just having a bad day, or being dramatic. Because if she was upset she would have told me."

"She couldn't tell you," I reply. "She was too afraid if she killed herself, she'd be killing you too. I don't want her to die, but I know she doesn't want to live like this. And I'm the one who can give her what she wants. I've always been the one who can give her what she wants".

My mother is a breath away from me, and in her eyes are all the mistakes she's ever made. My father comes up and puts his arm around her shoulders. "Come sit down," he whispers into her hair.

"Your honor," Miroku says, getting to his feet. "May I?'

"Kagome, do you love your sister?"

"Of course."

"But you are willing to take an action that might kill her?"

Something flashes inside me. "It was so she wouldn't have to to go through this anymore. I thought it was what she wanted."

He goes silent; and I realize at that moment: he knows.

Inside me, something breaks. "It was…it was what I wanted, too."

"Kagome," Miroku says quietly, "what made you think that Kikyo wanted to die?"

"She said she was ready."

"Isn't it possible that's the same reason she asked you to help her?"

"Did you tell Kikyo you were going to stop being a donor?"

"Yes," I whisper.

"When?"

"The night before I hired you."

"Kagome, what did Kikyo say?"

Until now, I hadn't really thought about it, but Miroku has triggered the memory. My sister had gotten very quiet, that I wondered if she'd fallen asleep. And then she turned to me with all the world in her eyes, and a smile that crumbled like a fault line.

I glance up at Miroku. "She said thanks."

* * *

--Inuyasha Pov 

It's raining.

I go outside and start walking. I head down the street and past the elementary school and through two intersections. I am soaked to the bone in about five minutes flat. That's when I start to run. I run so fast that my lungs start to ache and my legs burn, and finally when I cannot move another step I fling myself down on my back in the middle of the high soccer field.

Once, I took acid here during a thunderstorm like this one. I lay down and watched the sky fall. I imagined the raindrops melting away my skin. I waited for the one stroke of lightning that would arrow through my heart, and make me fell on hundred percent alive for the first time in my whole sorry existence.

The lighting. It had its chance. And it didn't come that day. It doesn't come this morning, either.

So I get up, wipe my hair out of my eyes, and try to come up with a better plan.

* * *

--Kagome Pov 

It's raining.

The kind of rain that comes down so heavy it sounds like the shower's running, even when you've turned it off. The kind of rain that makes you think of dams and flash floods, arks. The kind of rain that tells you to crawl back into bed, where the sheets haven't lost your body heat, to pretend that the clock is five minutes earlier than it really is.

Ask any kid who's made it past fourth grade and they can tell you: water never stops moving. Rain falls, and runs down a mountain into a river. The river finds its way to the ocean. It evaporates, like a soul, into the clouds. And then, like everything else, it starts all over again.

* * *

--Inutaisho Pov 

It's raining. Like the day Kagome was born—New Year's Eve, and way too warm for that time of year. What should have been snow became a torrential downpour. Ski slopes had to close for Christmas, because all their runs got washed out. Driving to the hospital, with Izayoi in labor beside me, I could barely see through the windshield.

There were no stars that night, what with all the rain clouds. And maybe because of that, when Kagome arrived I said to Izayoi. "Let's name her Kagoshima. Kagome, for short."

"Kagoshima?" she said. "Like the Sci-fi book?"

"Like the princess," I corrected. I caught her eye over the horizon of our daughter's head. "In the sky," I explained, "she's between her mother and her father."

* * *

--Izayoi Pov 

It's raining.

Not an auspicious beginning, I think. I shuffle my index cards on the table, trying to look more skilled than I actually am. Who was I kidding? I am no lawyer, no professional. I have been nothing more than a mother, and I have not even done a very square job of that.

"Mrs. Takahashi?" the judge prompts.

I take deep breath, stare down at the gibberish in front of me, and grab the whole sheaf of index cards.

I tried to read it over, but none of it made sense. It wasn't what I wanted to say.

I dropped them, and started over.

"Kagome." I tell her. "I love you. I loved you before I ever saw you, and I will love you long after I'm not here to say it. And I know that because I'm a parent, I'm supposed to have all the answers, but I don't. I wonder every single day if I'm doing the right thing. I wonder if I know my children the way I think I do. I wonder if I lose my perspective in being your mother, because I'm so busy being Kikyo's."

I take a few steps forward. "I know I jump at every sliver of possibility that might cure Kikyo, but it's all I know how to do. And even if you don't agree with me, even if Kikyo doesn't agree with me, I want to be the one who says _I told you so_. Ten years from now, I want to see your children on your lap and in your arms, because that's when you'll understand. I have a sister, so I know—that relationship, it's all about fairness: you want your sibling to have exactly what you have—the same amount of toys, the same number of meatballs on your spaghetti, the same share of love. But being a mother is completely different. You want your child to have more than you ever did. You want to build a fire underneath her and watch her soar. It's bigger than words." I touch my chest. "And it still all manage to fit very neatly inside here."

I turn the judge. "I didn't want to come to court, but I had to. The way the law works, if a petitioner takes action—even if that's your own child—you must have a reaction and so I was forced to explain, eloquently, why I believe that I know better than Kagome what is best for her. When you get down to it, though, explaining what you believe isn't all that easy. If you say that you _believe_ something to be true, you might mean one of two things—that you're still weighing alternatives, or that you accept it as a fact. I don't logically see how one single word can have contradictory definitions, but emotionally, I completely understand because there are times I think what I am doing is right, and there are other times I second-guess myself every step of the way.

"Even if the court found in my favor today, I couldn't force Kagome to donate a kidney. No one could. But would I beg her? Would I _want_ to, even if I restrained myself? I don't know, not even after speaking to Kikyo, and after hearing from Kagome. I am not sure what to believe, I never was. I know, indisputably, only two things: that this lawsuit was never really about donating a kidney…but about having choices. And that nobody really makes decisions entirely by themselves, not even if a judge gives them the right to do so."

Finally I face Miroku. " A long time ago I used to be a lawyer. But I'm not one anymore. I am a mother, and what I've done for the past eighteen years in that capacity is harder than anything I ever had to do in a courtroom. At the beginning of this hearing, Mr. Houshi, you said that none of us is obligated to go into a fire to save someone else from a burning building. But that all changes if you're a parent and the person in that building is your child. If that's the case, not only would everyone understand if you ran in to get your child—they'd practically _expect_ it of you."

I take a deep breath. "In my life, though, that building was on fire, one of my children was in it—and the only opportunity to save her was to send in my other child, because she was the only one who knew the way. Did I know I was taking a risk? Of course. Did I realize it meant maybe losing both of them? Yes. Did I understand maybe it wasn't fair to ask her to do it? Absolutely. But I also knew that it was the only chance I had to keep _both_ of them. Was it legal? Was it moral? Was it crazy or foolish or cruel? I don't know. But I do know it was _right_."

Finished, I sit down at my table. The rain beats against the windows to my right. I wonder if it will ever let up.

* * *

--Kagome Pov 

Visibility Sucks. The rain, if possible, is coming down even harder. I have this vision of it pummeling the car so hard it crunches like an empty Coke can, and just like that it's harder for me to breathe. It takes a second for me to realize this has nothing to do with the weather or latent claustrophobia, but with the fact that my throat is only half as wide as usual, tears hardening it like an artery, so that everything I do and say involves twice as much work.

I have been medically emancipated for a whole half hour now. Miroku says the rain is a blessing, it's kept the reporters away. Maybe they will find me at the hospital and maybe they won't, but by then I will be with my family, and it won't really matter. My parents left before us; we had to fill out the stupid paperwork. Miroku offered to drop me off when we were through, which was nice considering I know he wants nothing more than to hook up with Sango, which they seem to think is some tremendous mystery, but_ so_ isn't.

"Miroku?" I ask, out of nowhere. "What do you think I should do?"

He doesn't pretend to not know what I'm talking about. "I just fought very hard at a trial for _your_ right to choose, so I'm not going to tell you what I think."

"Great." I say, settling deep into my seat. "I don't even know who I really am."

"I know who you are. You're the premier doorknob caddy in all of Providence Plantations. You've got a wise mouth, and you pick the crackers out of the Chex Mix, and you hate math and…"

It's kind of cool, watching Miroku try to fill in all the blanks.

"…you like boys?" he finishes, but that one's a question.

"Some of them are okay," I admit, "but they probably all grow up to be like you."

He smiles, "god forbid."

"What are you going to do next?"

Miroku shrugs. "I may actually have to take on a paying case."

"So you can continue to support Sango in the style to which she's accustomed."

"Yeah," he laughs, "Something like that."

It gets quiet for a moment, so all I can hear is the squelch of the windshield wipers. I slip my hands under my thighs, sit on them. "What you said at the trial…do you really think I'll be amazing in ten years?"

"Why, Kagome Takahashi, are you fishing for compliments?"

"Forget I said anything."

He glances at me. "Yes I do. I imagine you'll be breaking guy's hearts, or paining in Montmartre, or flying fighter jets, or hiking through undiscovered countries." He pauses. "Maybe all of the above."

There was a time when, like Kikyo, Id wanted to be a ballerina. But since then I've gone through a thousand different stages: I wanted to be an astronaut. I wanted to be a paleontologist. I wanted to be a backup singer, a park ranger. Now, based on the day, I sometimes want to be a micro surgeon, a poet, a ghost hunter.

Only one thing's a constant. "Ten years from now," I say, "I'd like to be Kikyo's sister."

* * *

--Inutaisho Pov 

My beeper goes off, and I rush to the scene.

"Three injured," a police man says. "One's already en route."

I peer into the broken window and I almost faint. I do not know how I force myself back out of this snarled skeleton to knock the policemen out of the way; how I unhook Miroku Houshi from his seat belt and drag him to lay in the street with the rain pelting around him; how I reach inside to where my daughter is still and wide-eyes, strapped into her belt the way she is supposed to be and Jesus God no.

Her pulse is weak but it's still there.

We put in an IV line, and bag her. Rush her to the hospital.

Izayoi runs to me. "Where is she? What happened?"

"A car accident." I manage to say.

At that moment I hear Miroku Houshi, and the sound of something being thrown against a wall. "Goddammit," he says. "Just tell me whether or not she was brought here!" He bursts out of the doorway of another trauma room, his arm in a cast, his clothes bloodied. "Where's Kagome?" he asks.

I don't answer, because what the hell can I say. And that's all it takes for him to understand. "Oh, Jesus," he whispers. "Oh God, no."

The doctor comes out of Kagome's room. "InuTaisho," he says, "She's not responding to noxious stimuli."

"What does that mean? What is he saying, Inutaisho?" My wife whispers.

"Kagome's head hit the window with great force, Mrs. Takahashi. It caused a fatal head injury. A respirator is keeping her breathing right now, but she's not showing any indications of neurological activity…she's brain dead. I'm sorry." the doctor says. "I really am." He hesitates, looks from me to Izayoi. "I know it's not something you even want to think about right now, but there's a very small window…is organ donation something you'd like to consider?"

Miroku is the one who actually answers the doctor. "I have power of attorney for Kagome," he explains, "not her parents. And there is a girl upstairs who needs that kidney."

* * *

--Izayoi Pov 

In the English language there are orphans and widows, but there is no word for the parent who loses a child.

They bring her back down to us after the donated organs are removed. I am the last to go in. In the hallway, already are Inuyasha and Miroku, and some of the nurses we've grown close to, and even Sango Tajiya—the people who needed to say goodbye.

Inutaisho and I walk inside, where Kagome lies tiny and still on the hospital bed. A tube feeds down her throat, a machine breathes for her. It is up to us to turn it off. I sit down on the edge of the bed and pick up Kagome' hand, still warm to the touch. It runs out that after all these years I have spent anticipating something like this; I am completely at a loss. Like coloring the sky in with a crayon; there is no language for grief this big. "I can't do this," I whisper.

Inutaisho comes up behind me. "Sweetheart, she's not here. It's the machine keeping her body alive. What makes Kagome Kagome is already gone."

I run, bury my face against his chest. "But she wasn't supposed to," I sob.

We hold each other, then, and when I feel brave enough I look back down at the husk that once held my youngest. He is right after all. This is nothing but a shell. There is no energy to the lines of her face; there is a slack absence to her muscles. Under the skin they have stripped her of organs that will go to Kikyo and to other, nameless, second-chance people.

"Okay." I take deep breath. I put my hand on Kagome's chest as Inutaisho, trembling, flips off the respirator. I rub her skin in small circles, as if this might make it easier. When the monitors flatline, I wait to see some change in her. And then I feel it, as her heart stops beating beneath my palm—that tiny loss of rhythm, that hollow calm, that utter loss.

* * *

_--When along the pavement—_

_--Palpitating flames of life—_

_--People flicker round me—_

_--I forget my bereavement—_

_--the gap in the great constellation—_

_--the place where a star used to be—_

_-DH Lawrence_

_--Submergence'—_

* * *

--Kikyo Pov

_ 2010_

There should be a statue of limitation on grief. A rule book that says it's all right to wake up crying, but only for a month. That after forty-two days you will no longer turn with your heart racing, certain you have heard her call out your name. That there will be no fine imposed if you feel the need to clean out her desk; take down her artwork from the refrigerator; turn over a school portrait as you pass—if only because it cuts you fresh again to see it. That it is okay to measure the time she has been gone, the way weonce measured her birthdays.

For a long time, afterward, my father claimed to see Kagome in the night sky. Sometimes it was the wink of her eye, sometimes the shape of her profile. He insisted that stars were people who were so well loved they were traced in the constellations, to live forever. My mother believed, for a long time, that Kagome would come back to her. She began to look for signs—plants that bloomed too early, eggs with double yolks, salt spilled in the shape of letters.

And me, well, I began to hate myself. It was of course, all my fault of Kagome and never filed that lawsuit, if she hadn't been at the courthouse signing papers with her attorney, she never would have been at that particular intersection at that particular moment. She would be here, and I would be the one coming back to haunt her.

…

For a long time, I was sick. The transplant nearly failed, and then, inexplicably, I began the long steep climb upward. It has been eight years since my last relapse, something not even Dr. Chance can understand. He thinks it is a combination of the ATRA and the arsenic therapy—some contributing delayed effect—but I know better. It is that someone had to go, and Kagome took my place.

Grief is a curious thing, when I happen unexpectedly. It is a Band-Aid being ripped away, taking the top layer off a family. And the underbelly of a household is never pretty, ours no exception. There were times I stayed in my room for days on end with headphones on, if only so that I would not have to listen to m mother cry. There were the weeks that my father worked round-the-clock shifts, so that he wouldn't have to come home to a house that felt too big for us.

Then one morning, my mother realized that we had eated everything in the house, down to the last shrunken raisin ad graham cracker crumb, and she went to the grocery store. My father paid a bill or two. I sat down to watch TV and watched an old I Love Lucy and started to laugh.

Immediately, I felt like I had defiled a shrine. I clapped my hand over my mouth, embarrassed. It was Inuyasha, sitting beside me on the couch, who said, "She would have thought it was funny, too."

See, as much as you want to hold on to the bitter sore memory that someone has left this word, you are still in it. And the very act of living is a tide: at first it seems to make no difference at all, and then one day you look down and see just how much pain has eroded.

I wonder how much she keeps tabs on us. If she knows that for a long time, we were close to Miroku and Sango, even went to their wedding. If she understands that the reason we don't see them anymore is because it just plain hurt too much, because even when we didn't talk about Kagome, she lingered in the spaced between the words, like the smell of something burning.

I wonder if she was at Inuyasha's graduation from the police academy, if she knows that he won a citation from the mayor last year for his role in the drug bust. I wonder if she knew that Daddy fell deep into a bottle after she left and had to claw his way out. I wonder if she knows that, now, I teach children how to dance. That every time I see two little girls at the barre, sinking into plies, I think of us.

She still takes me by surprise. Like nearly a year after her death, when my mother came home with a roll of film she'd just developed of my high school graduation. We sat down at the kitchen table together, shoulder to shoulder, trying not to mention as we looked at all our double-wide grins that there was someone missing from the photo.

And then, as if we'd conjured her, the last picture was of Kagome. It had been that long since we'd used the camera, plain and simple. She was on a beach towel, holding out one hand toward the photographer, trying to get whoever it was to stop taking her picture.

My mother and I sat at the kitchen table staring at Kagome until the sun set, until we had memorized everything from the color of her ponytail holder to the pattern of fringe on her bikini. Until we couldn't be sure we were seeing her clearly anymore.

My mother let me have the picture of Kagome. But I didn't frame it; I put it into an envelope, sealed it and stuffed it far back into a corner drawer of a filing cabinet. It's there, just in case one of these days I start to lose her.

There might be a morning when I wake up and her face isn't the first thing I see. Or a lazy august afternoon when I can't quite recall anymore where the freckles were on her right shoulder. Maybe one of these days, I will not be able to listen to the sound of snow falling and hear her footsteps.

When I start to feel this way I go into the bathroom and I lift up my shirt and touch the white lines of my scar. I remember how, at first, I thought the stitches seemed to spell out her name. I think about her kidney working inside me and her blood running through my veins. I take her with me, everywhere I go.

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**A/N: The End. So please R & R and tell me what you think!. **

**--Love AltPunk **


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